"Conspiring to elect pro-gun candidates"? I plead guilty
So let me see, from what you’ve said below, the charge against me seems to be “conspiring to elect pro-gun candidates.” To that, I plead guilty, albeit using far different techniques than you erroneously (and disingenuously) claim. Would you rather we NOT promote pro-gun candidates?
Let me be very clear on this: GRNC is prohibited from giving money to candidates by law, and GRNC-PVF – although it would be within its rights to do so, and fully within the common practices of the NRA and other political organizations – chooses not to do so. What you cite are not candidate contributions, but (as I said previously) independent expenditures which are not, and cannot, be coordinated with campaigns. It is the standard model for organizations such as ours, except perhaps that we do it far better than most.
“You stated several times your organization quote GRNC does not give money to politicians unquote syntax or semantics not withstanding I presume it is your perception your organization does not directly give money to politicians but how about indirectly contribute to their campaigns? For instance…”
Would you rather NRA-PVF not give ratings to candidates? Would you rather GOA-PVF not do the same? Beyond the fact that independent expenditures are not “indirect contributions” (whatever those are), they are made by GRNC-PVF, which raises funds separately from GRNC, telling people who donate EXACTLY how their donations will be applied. Are you really this dishonest, or just completely ignorant of the political process?
“Your last post just stated your ‘volunteers manned the phones yet why do your FEC Form 3X schedule B itemized disbursements forms show YOUR PAC has spend thousands of dollars for Robo Calls Supporting: Tarte, Meadows, keadle, pittenger? (FEC 10/08/2012
http://images.nictusa.com/pdf/363/12...2954296363.pdf”
Another lie. (I like it when you talk: You continue to dig yourself deeper.) What I said in the post (which was not the last) was: “Did they drop thousands of phone calls and emails to the pols who eventually voted for it?”
What that refers to, of course, is not election action but legislative action in which GRNC volunteers built a an alert list of roughly 60,000 gun voters, who when asked to, dropped thousands of emails and phone calls into responsible legislators in order to do really bad things like, say, repeal the State of Emergency gun ban. Oooooh. Pretty awful, eh?
And by the way, you bet GRNC-PVF did robocalls for Tarte, Meadows, Keadle and Pittenger. That was just in the primaries and runoffs. In the General, we did them for Meadows, Hudson, Holding and Wade. We also did postcard mailings into a bunch of districts. And you know what? In each of those districts, we reach roughly twice as many gun voters as the NRA.
“And I know your volunteers were busy doing mailings yet your FEC Form 3X’s show again thousands of dollars spent in mailings to an outside service for the above listed candidates, interestingly even a check paid to you Paul (6/30/12 FEC
http://images.nictusa.com/pdf/078/12...2971390078.pdf)”
Gee, let me think about it: I need to reach 25,000 gun voters in US House 11, in order to tell them to vote for truly pro-gun candidate Mark Meadows instead of the Shuler protégé the NRA falsely rated “A”. How should I do it? Gather 10 of my best friends to start dialing? Sure. Isn’t that how all the successful candidates do it? No, you hire a company (a conservative company who only works with our type of people) to do it at dirt cheap rates. GRNCPVF doesn’t hide the robocalls we do, we proudly display them on the website. Once again, this is standard political practice. Either you are profoundly ignorant, or profoundly dishonest. Which is it?
And by the way the check to me you so ominously mention was for a reimbursement for expenses incurred while doing a postcard mailing into one of our targeted districts. You fail to mention that similar checks reimburse about two dozen volunteers in every election.
“Paul, now the directly/indirectly semantic controversy get confusing for me with the following information:
A coincidence I am sure but something I found on direct from campaignmoney.com about GRASS ROOTS NORTH CAROLINA/FORUM FOR FIREARMS EDUC POL VICTORY FUND
Political Candidates Receiving Contributions/Support in the '10 Election Cycle from GRASS ROOTS NORTH CAROLINA/FORUM FOR FIREARMS EDUC POL VICTORY FUND
Candidate Name Office Party State District Primary/ General $ Dollar Amount Date
D'ANNUNZIO, TIMOTHY BRUCE House of Reps Republican NC 08 R $236 06/30/2010
D'ANNUNZIO, TIMOTHY BRUCE House of Reps Republican NC 08 R $1,175 06/02/2010
Wow… semantics notwithstanding that sure does seem on the surface to show a direct contribution to Mister D’Annunziol…”
More lies. GRNC-PVF did lots of independent expenditures for D’Annunzio, but he never got a dime – although once again, had the PVF done so, it would have been both legal and within the guidelines of how contributors their money would be used.
“Paul was there another semantic slip of the tongue when followthemoney.com shows YOUR PAC donated to Mr. Hilton’s campaign to the tune of $1.5K
http://www.followthemoney.org/databa...l?d=1007140879”
Well, now that one is kind of interesting: It’s links keep saying “see the record,” but they never do show a real, original record. You know why? Because GRNC-PVF never gave money to Mark Hilton. What is particularly insidious about this one is that it couldn’t even be the incorrect depiction of an independent expenditure, because Hilton was secure in his district and we never had to mail for him.
Beyond the falseness of the record however, (and this is something you could easily verify from Hilton’s campaign reports, if you weren’t so interested in spinning lies), consider what you are accusing us of: HELPING THE MOST PRO-GUN LEGISLATOR IN THE NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
This is the guy who sponsored dozens of pro-gun bills; who first sponsored and then ensured passage of concealed handgun reciprocity, even when the Dems would only move one of their own people’s bills; who had not only a 100% pro-gun voting record, but also stuck his neck out with leadership to move our bills and advance the interests of NC gun owners. He is, in fact, the legislator that someone here lamented was not running again.
Let me be very clear: Mark Hilton is someone we should respect and honor. If you have a problem with him, gun owners should have a problem with you.
“Oh wait, there is more where your PAC contributed directly to the Moor NC Senate campaign $200; Citizens for David Miner $500; Webster for NC senate $100; and finally Pryor Gibson Good Government Comm. $100. taken from page 3 of your political committee disclosure report dated 12/31/99
http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/cf_p...0128YESA00.pdf”
There you go. Spent hours on this, didn’t you? You must really want to discredit the most pro-gun org in the state. You found the once and (I believe) only time GRNC-PVF directly gave trivial amounts of money to candidates: IN **1999.**
Listen to what I said earlier: “As for GRNC-PVF, what you will find is that we DON’T GIVE MONEY TO POLITICIANS, having long ago learned that throwing money at pols is generally a bad investment.”
That was exactly the lesson: We gave money to David Miner, only to have the committee he chaired facilitate the bill which now requires “domestic violence offenders” to turn in guns to the police. I’m happy to say that in the next election, we primaried him, causing him to describe GRNC as “a bunch of thugs,” after which he lost the General Election.
“You know Paul, internet public records are so comprehensive these days as the NC Bd of Elections as well as follow the money files are interesting reading of your registered committee independent expenditures reports show huge indirect contributions for a myriad of candidates to include radio spots.”
And damned good spots too, like the one that took out House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman. It and the others are on the PVF section of our website. You should check them out. They are hilarious. Again, you say that as though it is wrong. Would you rather GRNC-PVF NOT help elect pro-gun candidates? Who do you figure will help you then? In fact, one of the biggest failings of grass roots organizations is failing to do so. You should take me legislative tactics seminar: Politicians’ goal is to convince you that the legislative season and the election season are not related. Your goal is to ensure they are inexorably intertwined.” Oh, and those “huge amounts” are generally on the order of $2,000 for a radio campaign. Radio is a cheap and effective weapon. In fact, it’s what we used to get McHenry elected to Congress by a grand 85 votes.
“So yes there is syntax and semantics...
Paul, please remember to a screen shot of this posting to show your ‘legal director’ that you do not contribute to political candidates. “
Again, we do not. You have managed to spin lies to create the impression that GRNC-PVF does so, but that is a false assertion.
“I will continue to research internet sites to include the Fed Bd of Elections to see if any of the candidates have your entities listed as contributor.”
Please. Feel free. We have had a political action committee for something like 16 years. We have endeavored to maintain a squeaky clean record precisely to avoid these types of attacks (although we really didn’t expect it to be from the ostensibly “pro-gun” side).
But it’s time that list members take a look at the totality of these communications: On one side, we have an anonymous individual attacking GRNC and its political action committee for supporting pro-gun candidates (Shudder! Heaven forbid!) On one hand, the person seems to depict ignorance of campaign laws and standard practices of political non-profits. But on the other hand, he or she knows all about federal disclosure forms and is capable of tracking political committee reports back to 1999. Why would anyone want to spend so much time in a forum argument…unless, of course, they have an agenda.
On the other side, we have someone who has clearly identified themselves as the leader of the state’s primary gun rights organization (and yes, in this state, we have supplanted the NRA), who has pretty much laid it all out in the open – who we supported, what we did, and why.
What I think list members should ask themselves, is “Who is ‘Wabbit.’” Unwilling to identify themselves (always a bad sign), they seem to simultaneously have (willful?) ignorance of election laws, yet the ability to research obscure (and frequently wrong) secondary sources on campaign financing. They have spent the time to research GRNC press releases, and have knowledge dating back at least 10 years – things not on our new website.
Have any of you met this person? If so, please let me know. I would love to be proven wrong, but I suspect this person is either Edie Fleeman, NRA board member, Anthony Roulette, NRA representative for North Carolina, or maybe even Chuck Cunningham himself, the freshly demoted NRA Director of State and Local Affairs.
Should that be the case, you have a serious agent provocateur aboard. Don’t you love how these forums enable people to attack others, to rip them down while contributing nothing themselves, while refusing to identify themselves?
Armatissimi e liberissimi,
F. Paul Valone
President, Grass Roots North Carolina
www.GRNC.org
919.664.8565
